Your Right to Know

As Gov. John Kasich and fellow Statehouse Republicans try to navigate a delicate situation
related to expanding Ohio’s Medicaid program, Kasich has made it clear that he will not use state
tax dollars to provide some access to insurance for the poor, as conservatives are urging.

“Some in the legislature think we can spend state-of-Ohio money and reject the federal money ...
I won’t tolerate it,” Kasich said at a Republican function in Jackson County on Wednesday night. “
We’re not going to make you pay twice. ... That’s not acceptable.”

Kasich stumped again yesterday for his proposal to offer health coverage to 275,000 more poor
Ohioans by expanding Medicaid, chiding members of his party who oppose expansion in a short speech
at an event sponsored by the Ohio Commission on Minority Health. Meanwhile, Kasich’s aides say
negotiations with President Barack Obama’s White House over flexibility to use federal dollars to
pay for private insurance for some of the poor are going “very well,” to the point that Team Kasich
has begun to present it as a viable alternative for legislators to consider.

And those legislators — the Republicans who control the House and Senate and object to expanding
Medicaid as provided under the Democratic president’s health-care overhaul — are in Columbus this
week studying options during the Statehouse’s two-week “spring break.”

One of the options — the one Kasich said he will not consider — is using money in the state
budget for residents who qualify to buy some level of private insurance. State Rep. Barbara Sears,
R-Toledo, who is gathering information on four options related to Medicaid expansion for the House
to study, said the state-funded option “sounds like a wonderful idea” in theory for a conservative,
but questions exist about how much it would cost the state and what it would do to Ohio’s
budget.

“I certainly understand the governor’s position, and he has not been shy in explaining his
position to me,” Sears said. “I am not sure what I can do to change his mind, and I’m not sure I’m
interested in changing his mind.”

As Kasich makes his case to expand Medicaid, he says doing so would result in $13 billion in
taxpayer money coming back to Ohio from Washington over seven years. Under new health-care rules,
states could choose to expand Medicaid programs with money that Kasich says residents have already
paid in federal taxes, so a state-funded option would be duplicative.

The Kasich administration has been negotiating with the White House since November to use
federal funds to pay for some people to buy private insurance.

As it stands, states could use federal dollars to expand Medicaid eligibility to include people
with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

“Where (the legislature) is gonna land on this, it’s still up in the air,” said Greg Moody,
director of Kasich’s Office of Health Transformation.

Mike Dittoe, a spokesman for House Speaker William G. Batchelder of Medina, said the Republican
caucus has not achieved a consensus on what to do about Medicaid, even if Kasich wins flexibility
from the Obama administration. But Dittoe said he expects a bill from the House in two weeks that
would show “which direction we’re pointed.”

Kasich said yesterday that “on these kinds of issues, we cannot be partisan or philosophically
isolated from other people.”

“Because we all have hearts, it’s just a matter of being able to touch them,” he said. “People
who are in poverty, people who are discriminated against, we have to stand up for them. Pretty
interesting to hear a Republican governor talk this way for some of you, huh? But we’re all in it
together.”